In his controversial new book, Nick Davies argues that shadowy intelligence agencies are pumping out black propaganda to manipulate public opinion – and that the media simply swallow it wholesale

On the morning of 9 February 2004, The New York Times carried an exclusive and alarming story. The paper's Baghdad correspondent, Dexter Filkins, reported that US officials had obtained a 17-page letter, believed to have been written by the notorious terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi to the "inner circle" of al-Qa'ida's leadership, urging them to accept that the best way to beat US forces in Iraq was effectively to start a civil war.

The letter argued that al-Qa'ida, which is a Sunni network, should attack the Shia population of Iraq: "It is the only way to prolong the duration of the fight between the infidels and us. If we succeed in dragging them into a sectarian war, this will awaken the sleepy Sunnis."

Later that day, at a regular US press briefing in Baghdad, US General Mark Kimmitt dealt with a string of questions about The New York Times report: "We believe the report and the document is credible, and we take the report seriously... It is clearly a plan on the part of outsiders to come in to this country and spark civil war, create sectarian violence, try to expose fissures in this society." The story went on to news agency wires and, within 24 hours, it was running around the world.

There is very good reason to believe that that letter was a fake – and a significant one because there is equally good reason to believe that it was one product among many from a new machinery of propaganda which has been created by the United States and its allies since the terrorist attacks of September 2001. ……

I hope for Nick Davies that isn't his real name. These CIA guys play for keeps and are like cockroaches when the spot light is turned their way; they run for cover except cockroaches rarely kill like the CIA.

_________________“I'm not a member of any organized party. I'm a Democrat.”-Will Rogers

I am not sure who is more out of control, the Mossad or the CIA or intelligence agencies in general. They tend to be a law unto themselves.
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Like a lab virus that 'escaped'.

_________________"If the people allow private banks to control their currency the banks and corporations will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson

I agree. The Amerikan military are the biggest bunch of liars ever produced. Deception is part of their job. I ought to know. I was in the military. If I told you some of the crimes they pulled off and got away with without leaving behind a record of evidence, you would say I was lying. It is beyond the ability of most Amerikans to comprehend or believe. They are incredulous. Lie and play down the facts and candy coat the raw truth, and maybe the average Amerikan can believe what he hears. Tell them the true crudity and criminality of the government he or she believes they support, and they fall away in incredulousness, inability to comprehend the truth, or not caring to in any case.

It is truly a very sad case for Amerikans in a spiritual / moral sense, but as long as their needs are met and they enjoy a degree of security, they can afford to remain indifferent.

I was only one person. I could not and cannot stand against that kind of power to manipulate perceptions among so large a population of willing dupes.

Again, very important point.

My mother used to have a number of sayings she repeated often. Among them, 'There are none so blind as those who refuse to see'. We have in the American population hordes of people who do not want to live with reality. Whatever their life circumstances, they have become accustomed to floating along in the dream world painted for them by stories and what is laughingly called 'news'.

We do our best to enlighten people, but it is like swimming upstream. One heckofa job, and we might not make it. It is still worth the effort.

The phenomenon of which you speak is not necessarily a new one, but its exploitation by power has risen to the status of science and art. That people have eyes but cannot see, and have ears that cannot hear was known at least as far back as revolutionary Amerika. Consider the speech made by Patrick Henry to the Virginia Convention in which he said something to this effect.
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Are we disposed to be among the number of those who having eyes cannot see, and having ears cannot hear truths which so nearly concern their own temporal salvation? End of statement by P.H.
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That humanity are ensconced in an evanescent dream state is well known to philosophers.

_________________"If the people allow private banks to control their currency the banks and corporations will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson

If that is case, then it is anything but sly. The two forms of government have only dictatorial powers in common. World War II proved that Communism and Fascism were the antitheses of each other. Fascism thrives on corporate dominance while Communism eradicates corporate structures. To lump them together is the worse form of conflation, a right wing tactic to double their boogey man image.

_________________“I'm not a member of any organized party. I'm a Democrat.”-Will Rogers

You are so right in your estimation of the corporate state. AND, the Amerikan form of capitalism is exceedingly slick and cunning, persuading the sheeple not only to participate in their own victimization, but also to pay for it. It is sheer exploitation. No question about that, and the victims are willing dupes. There is freedom involved in it, freedom to blindside the people, and to exploit them to their detriment. The powers call it freedom as long as their victims pay them handsome profits. Democracy they call it. Rise up against it all, and you are suddenly, in the exploiters' estimation, no longer a democratic society, but a mob.